Young, Free and Single
by galadhwen
Summary: ...or why one should never let Sirius Black play with balls of purple light. It only leads to havoc, mayhem and...fitness. OotP.


It was a sweltering August afternoon in London, and the sunlight had finally managed to battle its way through the grime-ridden windows of the drawing room of 12 Grimmauld Place. Sirius scrubbed the window one last time, before stepping back with a satisfied sigh, and turned round to see what the others were up to. Harry and Ron were helping Remus sort through the bookshelf and Hermione and Ginny were clearing out one of the massive chests. Fred and George were over by the fireplace, shovelling out the dust and age-old ashes, at the same time painting their face and hands with the black cinders. Sirius grinned as he caught Fred's eye.

"Sirius, have you any idea what this is?" Hermione suddenly asked, extracting a strange round globe from the bottom of the chest. Sirius sauntered over and dropped down to the floor, his long legs folding up under him. "Let's have a look…" Hermione placed the object in his hands. It was pulsating with a deep purple light and there was an old-fashioned dial on its side that flickered erratically, eventually coming to rest on the number twenty with a final shudder. Sirius tapped it experimentally. "I'm not sure…" he said at length. "Rem?"

The lycanthrope shook his head and shrugged. "I've never seen anything like it. Um, Sirius…?" Sirius looked up inquiringly. "I suggest you be a bit more careful with it if you don't know what it does." Sirius grinned sheepishly and ceased shaking it.

"I've seen it before I think…" he frowned, thoughtfully.

"So have I," Hermione suddenly exclaimed. "I mean I've seen a picture of something that looks like that. Don't you remember, Harry, it was in one of the books were looking in when we were researching the Philosopher's stone? It was -"

She was cut short as a sudden puff of violet smoke erupted from the ball with a hissing noise at the same time as Sirius yelped and was simultaneously engulfed in smoke.

"Sirius!" Harry jumped to his feet with a cry. He stopped dead in his tracks as the smoke cleared to reveal a rather bemused looking Sirius, who seemed different in some strange way…

"Ah." Sirius commented. The others started as they realised his voice had taken on a whole different timbre, warmer and less harsh. "I've just remembered what it does now." A wicked grin spread across his face as he stood up and gazed at himself in the mirror. The thin, drawn man that he had been a minute ago had disappeared. In its place was an equally thin figure, but not of starvation or malnutrition, and the haunted look had gone from around his darkly glinting eyes; the shadows were no longer from nightmare-ridden sleep but heavily smudged black eyeliner. His face was just as white, exaggerated by the make-up, but fuller, and decorated with silver piercings. His hair, before hanging in long straight black sheets down his back, gently curled about his shoulders with the occasional red or white streak. He smiled slowly.

"Oh dear God," Remus commented in horror, coming up behind him and likewise staring at the figure in

the glass. "He's nineteen again."

Sirius suddenly laughed and gave Remus an impulsive hug. "That's right folks!" he shouted. "But only for twenty-four hours unfortunately. Hey, you don't need to look so shocked…" he said indignantly at all six faces that were staring at him. "It's an age-reversal gadget. My mother got it off the black market years ago so she could still be the belle of the ball at parties. I remember now."

"But how does it work?" Hermione asked, unable to take her eyes off the new Sirius. "I mean, its taken, or at least I presume its taken, your clothes back with it as well, at least I haven't seen you wear, um, those before, at least not whilst I was around…" Hermione quickly shut up and turned a shade pink as she realised she was rambling. Luckily no one seemed to have noticed except for Ginny, who was pretty much thinking along the same lines.

Sirius had turned back to the mirror again and was grinning. The black t-shirt and jeans were a shade tighter than the ones he had been wearing before with a band logo plastered across his chest and a studded belt lying casually across his hips. There were a few well-placed rips in his jeans, and from around the shirt were the familiar edges of his tattoos. He reached up a finger to touch the Gothic cross around his neck and the inverted ankh, and lightly fingered the studs in his ears. It felt good to be back. And he hadn't checked properly yet, he hadn't dared to in case he was wrong, but they felt right. He glanced down, and let out an unrestrained whoop of joy. They were there, his beloved, foot-killing boots in all their buckles and high-heeled glory. He chuckled again. "Yeah, it seems so. That's the way it works. It's sort of like a time-turner, but not. It takes the actual appearance of the object back however many years is on the dial. It this case it was me, so of course the clothes go too. It's like time goes back in a restricted space, if you see what I mean. That's not exactly how it works, but it's the simplest way I can explain it without going into immense detail about Tempson's Theory of Time Manipulation and its relative forces."

Remus blinked. "You do know how scary that was don't you?"

"What?"

"You being nineteen and intelligent..." Remus snorted as a dusty rag hit him squarely in the face. "Of course since you spent your entire late teens drugged up in some godforsaken underground London bar, screaming at crowd of rowdy teenagers and slamming on your guitar there wasn't really much opportunity to display any intelligence."

"Well, thank you very much. Besides what's wrong with that?"

"Absolutely nothing!" Remus raised his hands defensively. "It's just not my…cup of tea."

"No, your cup of tea is Earl Grey, preferably, with a bar of chocolate on the side." Sirius grinned wickedly. "You look freaked out Harry," he commented casually.

"Well, yes. Not only is my godfather now only…four years older than me, he's also wearing make-up. And heels. And I'm not expected to be just a little weirded out by that?"

"Hah, you think you're weirded out, Harry." George suddenly exclaimed. "What about Mum? She made enough of a fuss about Bill's one little earring, she's going to love you, Sirius, mate! You've got, like, how many?"

"Twenty-three."

"_Twenty-three?_" Hermione interjected.

"Yeah. Seven in each ear, fourteen, two in my lips, wom ib by tongue," he put his tongue back in after showing them. "One in my nose, one in my eyebrow. Nineteen. Two in my nipples, two in my belly button. Twenty-three."

"And as for the make-up," Fred continued. "She won't even let _Ginny_ wear it, and she's a girl!"

Sirius began to laugh again, his whole face lighting up. He glanced at the clock. "Well, dinner's in half an hour. Do you think we should go down and help?" He asked innocently, matching the smirks on the twins' faces.

"Absolutely!" They agreed. "Coming guys?"

Ron and Harry shared a look and followed. "My thirty-nine year old godfather is a Goth. And he's acting like a nineteen year old," he muttered to himself.

"Well, he might as well," Ron answered. "He looks it."

"Don't worry, it'll wear off." Remus said, only slightly doubtfully, hurriedly following, not daring for one minute to let the teenagers out of his sight. After all, only he knew the real beautiful disaster that was Sirius Black.

"Um, Hermione." Ginny finally spoke, as the girls left the room, not willing to miss seeing Mrs Weasley's reaction to the new Sirius. "I know it's kind of weird, seeing as how he's, like, Harry's godfather and, well, normally twenty-four years older than us but…"

"He's bloody hot," Hermione finished for her, with a grin.


End file.
